Erika Traub, 51, is one of three people who has declared candidacy as mayor for the city of Waterloo since nominations opened this month.

And she has one main message for the students: “If you can vote in Waterloo, vote.”

The criminal defense attorney officially threw her hat in the ring late last week. She spoke with The Cord to explain her plans for the city if elected.

“Waterloo is a unique community,” Traub said. “It’s got ‘inner bigness’ and I think the goal for me is to ensure moving forward that this is a community that people want to move to and that people who live here want to stay in.”

“That’s my vision.”

Traub’s platform indicated that she wishes to provide leadership and advocacy for the city.

This, she wrote in her platform, is “to ensure that the city provides its services efficiently, provides its maintenance obligations efficiently, and to ensure this is a community that enables success for everybody, from students to business and everybody in between.”

A University of Waterloo alumna, Traub has spent the majority of her life in the area of Kitchener-Waterloo. Traub also clarified her position on the Light Rail Transit project, which has already been a source of contention in elections talk.

“It is what it is, we are getting the LRT,” she said. “It’s going to be hugely disruptive to the corridor where it will pass through, it will affect businesses, and it will affect mobility of everybody in Waterloo.”

Dave MacDonald, another mayoral candidate, voiced his intention to shut the transit program down.

“We have to work towards maximizing the efficiency of the construction process and also the LRT and to keep those costs in check because these costs could easily spiral out of control and we don’t want to see that,” Traub added.

Traub is opposed to shutting the LRT down. She referred to the cancellation of the Oakville hydro plant as an example of poor leadership and costly decisions.

“I do not support that at all, in fact, that scares me,” she said. Traub also reflected on her competition for the upcoming race and felt that her presence in the election will ultimately be determined by the voters.

“I think that the decision of the voters on who they wish to have mayor is a very personal one,” Traub explained. “It’s up to voters and the voters will decide what direction they wish the city to go in.”

She continued, “I want to, through my campaign, communicate with the voters about who I am and what I’m all about and what I plan to do. Once the voters know that … I respect the will of the majority.”